Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: Rainbow Six Under Siege
There’s a long history of video games being altered between regions during localization, a process that started during the 80s and never stopped. Publishers have been making changes to games depending on the territory they’re released in, due to differing cultural values in several parts of the world. The most memorable examples in the old school days occurred with western versions of Japanese games, which often removed alcohol and blood due to video gaming being viewed as a kids’ hobby. These days, it’s usually versions outside America that receive alterations. Values change over time, especially when a lot of people push for them when they can.
The process is also more complicated for different types of games. Online games are more popular these days, and titles of the live service variety are taking off on video game platforms and PC. These are always-online titles where players can either team up or go solo online (with the former being encouraged) to complete missions and tasks, while both minor and significant content are released over years to extend their longevity.
This is relevant to the point above because these games are also released worldwide, meaning each version has to be identical across all regions for players to have the same online experience. This means if one version needs editing, they all do. A situation like this recently occurred with Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege.
Ubisoft recently released Siege into Asian territories, but edits were required for the game to comply with the guidelines for entertainment media for certain countries — especially China. While they made it clear none of the changes would alter the core gameplay, adjustments had to be made for them to create a single global version. For one, melee and death action feed icons were redesigned to be less grisly-looking. The former changed from resembling a knife to one of a fist, with the implication that opponents would merely be KO’d (unless one of the playable characters is a dangerous kung-Fu artist) instead of stabbed to death. The latter was a little more esoteric, as it resembles someone wearing an X-marks-the-spot shirt instead of indicating the death of a player or enemy.
More changes were made to the backgrounds, which Ubisoft showed in four examples. The first shows how a mask and sunglasses were put over a skull, which… actually looks pretty neat if you ask me. The second one involved slot machines being removed, thanks to gambling being illegal in China. For the third one, blood splatter was removed from a picture (and perhaps others), in an edit that felt like a callback to what happened with the aforementioned old school western localizations. The final one was an alteration for the neon silhouette of a woman pole dancing, thanks to most instances of sexual content being banned in China. This was changed to the silhouette of a woman’s hand, the biggest of all four alterations.
Given the massive freak-outs that have occurred with the gaming community over the last few years, it’s no surprise that several of them were furious about this. Edits that affect one territory are one matter, but it’s much different for an online game, where everyone has to bend to the demands of one with arguably regressive laws made to heavily police their people. There’s legitimate concern for online games in the future being adjusted for the whims of other countries. None of these alterations were big, but there’s potential for them to be bigger in the future.
Fortunately, Ubisoft reversed course on this, after heaving concerns from the player community around the world and their development team. The changes will be reverted with the next update, which will arrive sometime early next month. For now, Ubisoft said that “players in Asian territories can continue enjoying the same game,” which implies how the edited version will simply be the version for Asian territories. It will be possible to have two versions, but it could turn into a hassle to run considering both will have to be monitored and updated independently. Ubisoft is a big company and can afford to do this with a large-enough team (whether they’ll hire and assign enough staff for this is another issue), but other companies that may have to do the same in the future may not be so lucky.
There’s a chance that gaming will continue getting more popular in China, as the government undoes restraints to help the hobby expand in the country — not to say all those old hindrances are gone. Siege may not be the last game to encounter this issue, but it’s possible publishers who want to release their games in China will preadjust them so they can be played worldwide without future issues. But there’s also a chance that smaller publishers will find the editing process a hassle that compromises their vision, and simply won’t bother releasing their games there. Not that some of them will have much of a choice in the matter if their titles aren’t approved. This will be worth watching over the next few years.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
